Help me learn to love theory

[bernadette60614]

I do love to play, I even find fulfillment in practicing. When it comes to theory...not so much.  In fact, I avoid studying theory.  I know it is good for me as a developing pianist but it reminds me too much of school workbook drills, which I left behind me many years ago.

Help me learn to love it!

Thanks!

[chopinlover01]

Use it as a composition tool. That's what worked for me.. so now my teacher is seizing that opportunity (he taught theory for 30 some years at a music school).
Also, play jazz.

[pianoplayer002]

Pick up composition! It's much more fun to make use of your newly acquired theory skills by writing a little piece, or even just a short passage, rather than doing workbook drills. It's awesome when your own creations are starting to sound competent.

Study the pieces you are playing. Realizing the genius way the greatest composers utilized the tools in their toolbox with complete mastery can be exhilarating.

But I don't think anyone can convince you to like something you don't like In the end, you have to find out yourself.  

[j_menz]

I've always loathed theory, and have managed to avoid studying it since somewhat before the time the dinosaurs went extinct, save insofar as it actually had a solid application to what I needed to do - not just someone telling me it would be good for me.

What are you hoping to get out of it?

[gr8ape]

theory has helped me memorize pieces faster for one thing...

[timothy42b]

I've always loathed theory, and have managed to avoid studying it since somewhat before the time the dinosaurs went extinct, save insofar as it actually had a solid application to what I needed to do -

Ditto.  Well, I wouldn't say I loathed it, but until it had some practical application it was an academic exercise that wouldn't stick.

Then I ended up running a Praise and Worship Band and needed to know a few things.  I looked them up one at a time, when I needed them, and applied them immediately.  These few things made sense and they stayed with me even given a bad memory.

Neapolitan Sixth??  Nah. 

D/G?  Yeah, need that.  How to spell C6?  yup.  Play some E5s here.  Etc. 

[quantum]

Use theory as an extension of what you do when playing piano, or listening to music.  I agree that theory in isolation can get boring quickly.  Theory can help you understand better the music that you play, which in turn can bring you closer to realizing the interpretation you form in your mind.  For example: there are probably moments in music where you are saying to yourself "that sounds awesome" without fully understanding why, just that you like it.  Theory can help you understand what is going on in that moment, help you recognize similar events in other music, and help you recreate the effect if you so desire in your own compositions.  

Here's a good theory book that is meant to be read at the piano.  No long winded explanations of things, instead you are supposed to play through it.  
https://www.amazon.com/A-New-Approach-Keyboard-Harmony/dp/B002RRL99K/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt

[louispodesta]

Pick up composition! It's much more fun to make use of your newly acquired theory skills by writing a little piece, or even just a short passage, rather than doing workbook drills. It's awesome when your own creations are starting to sound competent.

Study the pieces you are playing. Realizing the genius way the greatest composers utilized the tools in their toolbox with complete mastery can be exhilarating.

But I don't think anyone can convince you to like something you don't like In the end, you have to find out yourself.  

Way back when, in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were no stupid elitist/classist music schools requiring students to sit in desks and have someone try to teach them music theory.

What there was a private performance instructor/teacher, AND there was a separate composition/theory teacher.

Duh!!

[j_menz]

Way back when, in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were no stupid elitist/classist music schools requiring students to sit in desks and have someone try to teach them music theory.

What there was a private performance instructor/teacher, AND there was a separate composition/theory teacher.

Duh!!

Chopin will no doubt be surprised to learn that he in fact didn't attend the Warsaw Conservatory due to its non-existence.

The Paris Conservatory will be pleased to be able to shorten its history by more than a century, and the St Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories will be similarly, albeit to a lesser extent, relieved.

You really do just make stuff up, don't you. 

[pianoplunker]

I do love to play, I even find fulfillment in practicing. When it comes to theory...not so much.  In fact, I avoid studying theory.  I know it is good for me as a developing pianist but it reminds me too much of school workbook drills, which I left behind me many years ago.

Help me learn to love it!

Thanks!

I first studied theory as I was interested in improvising/composing. A nice surprise it also helped me know the keyboard and the music much better. My teacher at the time had me go through Mozart Sonatas and write chord charts - it was actually quite fun since I could suddenly read the notes and know where it was progressing. Plus when I read the chord charts for pop songs I can easily pick up what the piano is doing by ear. What is not to love about understanding what you are doing or what the composer has written ?  That being said, I did NOT study advanced theory and do not wish to ever.  I learned enough for what I like to do.

[theholygideons]

I do love to play, I even find fulfillment in practicing. When it comes to theory...not so much.  In fact, I avoid studying theory.  I know it is good for me as a developing pianist but it reminds me too much of school workbook drills, which I left behind me many years ago.

Help me learn to love it!

Thanks!

You're retarded if you don't have any urge to learn music theory. It's what separates professionals from the amateurs.

[perfect_playing]

theory is really important! Knowing the harmony of your pieces helps your interpretation and musical understanding. Like if you have a diminished chord all out of nowhere you've gotta realise it's an improtant moment and you have to change the way you play at that part to reflect the diference

[j_menz]

You're retarded if you don't have any urge to learn music theory. It's what separates professionals from the amateurs.

What separates professionals from amateurs is cash.

theory is really important! Knowing the harmony of your pieces helps your interpretation and musical understanding. Like if you have a diminished chord all out of nowhere you've gotta realise it's an improtant moment and you have to change the way you play at that part to reflect the diference

A diminished chord out of nowhere? 

Surely if theory has any purpose it is to prevent such surprises.

[bernadette60614]

Responding to an earlier question:  I feel that a decent understanding of theory is the next step of going from someone who takes piano lessons to someone who is a musician.  Much as having a professional coach teaching a good runner about body mechanics helps that good runner become an athlete.

As someone who has a child with a learning disability I find the term retarded offensive on a number of levels.

[dcstudio]

I can give you a nice narcissistic reason to love theory.

When you speak theory fluently you have a language that is only understood by musicians.  It's kinda fun to watch those "not in the know" become flustered. 

If you do someday go into a music career you will find much to your chagrin that it is a world often filled with musicians who are quite incompetent.   Not all of them--of course.   You see, often times musicians are hired by non-musicians who really don't know the difference.  To a non-musician--it's very impressive to have understanding of theory.  They have no idea why--of course--but if you can dazzle them with theory terms they think you know it all.

I worked at a very high profile studio for a while--the owner came in one day with some sheet music that was totally throwing her for a loop.   She brought it to me saying how she had never seen this before--they never taught this in theory class! 

The piece had figured bass along with a fully notated grand staff.      That's 1st semester theory--even if you never made it past there--you would have remembered figured bass.  I realized immediately that my suspicions were correct-- she had never been to theory class or music school as she had claimed. 

Understanding theory makes it impossible for people to inflate their musical credentials and abilities to you.  You will sniff out the BS as soon as they open their mouths.

I am saying these things because you asked for reasons other than--it's good for my playing. 

[chopinlover01]

You're retarded if you don't have any urge to learn music theory. It's what separates professionals from the amateurs.

Because every person who studies theory in college is immediately a professional. Y'know

[louispodesta]

Chopin will no doubt be surprised to learn that he in fact didn't attend the Warsaw Conservatory due to its non-existence.

The Paris Conservatory will be pleased to be able to shorten its history by more than a century, and the St Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories will be similarly, albeit to a lesser extent, relieved.

You really do just make stuff up, don't you. 

Like I said:  there were no stupid elitist music schools requiring students to sit in desks and learn music theory.  This excerpt from Chopin's bio proves it:  " In the autumn of 1826 he began a three-year course under the Silesian composer Józef Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatory, studying music theory, figured bass and composition."

Chopin's study of composition, theory and figured bass wasn't even remotely they way music theory is taught today.  Further, he was composing and performing way before he entered the conservatory.

So, I guess he just bought "Composition for Dummies" and just started out on his own.  Chopin's composition/theory instruction was private, not classroom, and you know it!

[anamnesis]

Part of the problem, is that most of the theory taught is the wrong kind of theory, needed to easily provide insight needed for performance.  See this analysis of the  to see how the language of  more traditional theory obfuscates what's really going on underneath the Chopin E minor prelude:

https://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/2007/08/05/how-to-make-a-chopin-prelude/


The concerns of the blog are asking how should music be understood?

Like this?
https://mathemusicality.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/proganal2.png

or this?
https://mathemusicality.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/proganal1.png


Should we conceive music as a series of concatenated objects rather than processes?
https://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/how-not-to-teach-music/

Stephen Laitz author of the Complete Musician makes a similar point here:

t=212

From there, in what dimension of music should those operations take place? Neo-Riemann theory still operates on vertical sororities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Riemannian_theory

Whereas the author of the blog thinks it is more refined for those operations to exist in lines:

https://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/principles-of-westergaardian-theory-lines/

From that perspective, cadences and chord progressions are really the result of the alignment of lines:

https://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/2007/10/14/the-westergaardian-vertical-dimension-part-1/

[pianoplunker]

Responding to an earlier question:  I feel that a decent understanding of theory is the next step of going from someone who takes piano lessons to someone who is a musician. 

Yes, but we still must work on technique.

[pianoplunker]

You're retarded if you don't have any urge to learn music theory. It's what separates professionals from the amateurs.

Nonsense, plenty of great musicians  never even learned to read music, let alone theory. until you understand the result of learning theory, it can be very much a drag so I dont blame anyone who feels it is not worth the trouble. Amateur or professional does not apply.

[louispodesta]

Nonsense, plenty of great musicians  never even learned to read music, let alone theory. until you understand the result of learning theory, it can be very much a drag so I dont blame anyone who feels it is not worth the trouble. Amateur or professional does not apply.

The assistant chair of the "Ear Training" division at the Berklee School of Music is Roberta Radley.  She states in her bio that 1) when she initially took the standard course, she was an abysmal failure.  Then, 2) when she was forced to write her own arrangements/compositions, then and only then did it click.

Our brains and our ears are wired a certain way.  Therefore, studying theory, separate and apart from composition (the NASM way), has shown no comprehensive level of success, in my opinion.

When you have to write/compose your own stuff, then you become a real musician.  So says Earl Wild in his Memoir.  And, after 83 years of doing so, he would know.

[Bob]

To recognize more patterns in music.  More patterns, more awareness... possibly less work mentally or at least a better performance.

Schenkarian analysis I still find interesting. 

[bernadette60614]

As an update to this, at this week's lesson my teacher and I "composed" a little ballet using some theory.  Pretty exciting stuff!

[dcstudio]

Nonsense, plenty of great musicians  never even learned to read music, let alone theory. until you understand the result of learning theory, it can be very much a drag so I dont blame anyone who feels it is not worth the trouble. Amateur or professional does not apply.

lol...   quite a presumptuous statement there.    It's worth the trouble...  just takes a while to figure out

you'll get there.

[ted]

It seems to me that quantum is the only one who has understood the topic question, and therefore his approach is the only viable one. The original poster is not asking how to learn theory but how to learn to love it, and the practicality of this is by no means assured. Even were the poster to employ quantum's suggestion, she may discover, as I did, that theory, as the term is usually understood, has no relevance at all to her personal musical aesthetic. She might still prefer her "wrong" sounds to the the theory's "right" ones. In other words, she might be led to form her own theories, which she would certainly love, and this could be a very good outcome.

[anamnesis]

It seems to me that quantum is the only one who has understood the topic question, and therefore his approach is the only viable one. The original poster is not asking how to learn theory but how to learn to love it, and the practicality of this is by no means assured. Even were the poster to employ quantum's suggestion, she may discover, as I did, that theory, as the term is usually understood, has no relevance at all to her personal musical aesthetic. She might still prefer her "wrong" sounds to the the theory's "right" ones. In other words, she might be led to form her own theories, which she would certainly love, and this could be a very good outcome.

And why would you say theory doesn't match your personal musical aesthetic?

[louispodesta]

It seems to me that quantum is the only one who has understood the topic question, and therefore his approach is the only viable one. The original poster is not asking how to learn theory but how to learn to love it, and the practicality of this is by no means assured. Even were the poster to employ quantum's suggestion, she may discover, as I did, that theory, as the term is usually understood, has no relevance at all to her personal musical aesthetic. She might still prefer her "wrong" sounds to the the theory's "right" ones. In other words, she might be led to form her own theories, which she would certainly love, and this could be a very good outcome.

Music is COMPOSED.  Visual art (excepting photography) is painted.  And, dancers dance, sculptors sculpt, and dramatists perform.

What is not being discussed here is that somebody (Heinrich "Urtext" Schenker), along with his eminence Arnold Schonberg, got the foolhardy idea that a student didn't need to learn the basics of music structure privately.  Instead, they could do it in a college classroom environment.

They were wrong!

How the arithmetic (that is right. 4th grade arithmetic) rules of music theory are understood is the particular mechanical nature of music's fine art form.  Painting comes out of all colors, brush strokes and techniques.  However, it is all one study.

I have all of the stupid books: Ottman, Schonberg, Piston, Aldwell & Schlacter, et al, and none of it means anything unless you actually learn how to write music.

[marikafrank]

My dearest Bernadette, you ask us a highly practical question - and we thank you.

I am new in this forum, otherwise an old professor emeritus of music theory, high up here in  Scandinavia. I still have piano students whom I love and deeply respect.
I will be short tonight and focus only on one excellent guide book we use just now:

In the library of New York´s  Juillard School in 2013 I found this excellent Bach book:
It has Roman numerial analysis below  - and modern JAZZ CHORDS simultaneously
exactly above the academic numerials in the Bach piano score.

It has all of Bach´s interesting chords, all modulations in the chorals, cadences and the  Bach´s 4-part genial  voice-leading where evry part is a beauty in itself.

There is a twin-book, without analyses, but with lot of spaces to pencil in your own harmonizations, alternative voice-leading, modulations and your own personal chords. Then you can compare your own every day maturing thinking  - with Bach.
This book has often 4 - 5 different versions of Bach´s own harmonizations for the same hymn melody - so you quickly learn there is no absolute right, just creativity.

The initiative of  my students was to do the same with WTC 1-2 and Art of the Fuge.
The Well Tempered Clavier  will soon be ready ( withJazz chords and all ). Bach´s difficult Art of the Fuge was left for me, and it is coming -  chords and architecture.

So, dear Bernadette, my  students greet you and here comes 2 links to start with:

https://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-413-Chorales-Analyzed/dp/0989087905/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_1

https://bachchoraleharmony.com/

P.S. It has been difficult to get copies recently  -  so grab your own, if you can find.

[ted]

And why would you say theory doesn't match your personal musical aesthetic?

I have no idea "why", it just doesn't, rather like preferring bananas to strawberries. I have tried many times over the years, taken courses of lessons from prominent academics and composers, but I cannot see any point in it if I still enjoy my "wrong" sounds more than theoretically "right" ones. Of course I am at liberty to create my own theories to suit the sounds I like, I suppose, but only in the form of vague guidelines because surprise and delight are too important to me. Anything more rigid would be like trying to write a computer program (the ultimate theory perhaps ?) to produce sounds I enjoy. It might be possible but I couldn't be bothered. 

[pianoplunker]

As an update to this, at this week's lesson my teacher and I "composed" a little ballet using some theory.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Although the study of theory can be very theoretical, it is great your teacher is working with you and letting you see how it applies.  Pretty soon, you will be one of those posters who post improvisations. :-)

[pianoplunker]

lol...   quite a presumptuous statement there.    It's worth the trouble...  just takes a while to figure out

you'll get there.

I agree with you, on my presumptuous post, and that learning theory is worth the trouble. I really do have at least one great example of not knowing how to read music ( or not caring to ) but you will have to play Misty for me before I tell

[anamnesis]

I have no idea "why", it just doesn't, rather like preferring bananas to strawberries. I have tried many times over the years, taken courses of lessons from prominent academics and composers, but I cannot see any point in it if I still enjoy my "wrong" sounds more than theoretically "right" ones. Of course I am at liberty to create my own theories to suit the sounds I like, I suppose, but only in the form of vague guidelines because surprise and delight are too important to me. Anything more rigid would be like trying to write a computer program (the ultimate theory perhaps ?) to produce sounds I enjoy. It might be possible but I couldn't be bothered.  

I'm just curious why you think your "wrong sounds" doesn't correspond with theory.  Technically, any sound is correct.  It may not fit the idiom of music during the common practice period, but it isn't "wrong". 

Theory isn't about wrong or right sounds, but about developing a metalanguage that allows people to effectively communicate about different aspects music whether they be a composer, listener, or performer.  

[j_menz]

Theory isn't about wrong or right sounds, but about developing a metalanguage that allows people to effectively communicate about different aspects music whether they be a composer, listener, or performer.  

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - variously attributed.

Can it really be called theory at all if it is merely descriptive? Would a plagal cadence really be experienced differently by someone who knows it's name to someone who doesn't?

[marikafrank]

Good morning,
during the night there came in questions in the teacher´s forum about the BACH books - which I promoted above - and finding them in libraries. I will answer and give some practical info also here before my teaching starts:

You are right, the books spiral bound and are not used in most libraries.
In New York´s Juilliard Scool in 2013 I met the anlyzed book in the Bach project´s handlibrary. I got it as present when the project finished in the Bach studio.

Yes, the exercise book was developed later: At least I got my own last year.

Important here, is that the author of both books is gentle master Chris Czarnecki,
who works from his studio in N.Y. My personal contact with Chris was through his website which is here: https://bachchoraleharmony.com/ Chris is highly gifted as a theorist, but not so practical with self-publishing, he is a gentle, rather shy, scholar.

Yes, I feel, that I am promoting the books, as a teacher,  they do really work!
Perhaps a forum here, is not the right place, so I better go to my class, now:

Friendly greetings from a sunny Stockholm,
Marika

[ted]

Can it really be called theory at all if it is merely descriptive?

It seems most musicians consider that is what theory is, and mostly about harmony to the exclusion of all other properties. I can see some sense in cultivating private dynamic guidelines for personal musical creation, to assist in idea generation, particularly in improvisation, but they concern instruction rather than data, and are necessarily very vague and flexible. Is a universal constructive theory not oxymoronical anyway, in the sense that it could be programmed, thus abolishing creative volition ? No more surprises, moments of serendipity ?

I'm afraid I still cannot see any point in it. Descriptive theory is gilding the lily by stating the obvious and constructive theory in any precise sense negates the whole purpose of art.

[anamnesis]

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - variously attributed.

Can it really be called theory at all if it is merely descriptive? Would a plagal cadence really be experienced differently by someone who knows it's name to someone who doesn't?

It's a meta-language because music is its own form of communication and thus a language, and we are communicating about it using another language (verbally). 

It isn't merely about being able to "name" objects, but to articulate the function and rationale behind every compositional choice and how that interacts with listener expectations as well as the decisions made by performers.   

And, yes, it should acknowledge that the composer can do what they damn well please, and that structural ambiguities can allow listeners to hear differents aspects of the same piece of music. 

[anamnesis]

It seems most musicians consider that is what theory is, and mostly about harmony to the exclusion of all other properties. I can see some sense in cultivating private dynamic guidelines for personal musical creation, to assist in idea generation, particularly in improvisation, but they concern instruction rather than data, and are necessarily very vague and flexible. Is a universal constructive theory not oxymoronical anyway, in the sense that it could be programmed, thus abolishing creative volition ? No more surprises, moments of serendipity ?

I'm afraid I still cannot see any point in it. Descriptive theory is gilding the lily by stating the obvious and constructive theory in any precise sense negates the whole purpose of art.

Sometimes you have to "state the obvious" to clarify thinking to see the logical follow through and even take things further, and even then it's not always obvious to everyone.  If the musical language was so obvious, everyone who could read notes and manipulate an instrument well would be a superlative performer.  But we know that is not the case. 

Theory can be powerful enough to describe the rationale behind any composition choice and how it can effect listener expectations, and still be useful in the constructivist sense in that it allows you to understand common idioms or paradigms that produce a certain effect on the listener. 

Your decision to confirm, distort, or what have you on those paradigms is up to you. 

[dcstudio]

I agree with you, on my presumptuous post, and that learning theory is worth the trouble. I really do have at least one great example of not knowing how to read music ( or not caring to ) but you will have to play Misty for me before I tell

me, dcstudio, playing Misty for you pianoplunker  

now do tell....

[j_menz]

It's a meta-language because music is its own form of communication and thus a language, and we are communicating about it using another language (verbally). 

I know what a meta-language is, but music theory seems to me a particularly poor example. Lot's of nouns, not much else.

It isn't merely about being able to "name" objects, but to articulate the function and rationale behind every compositional choice and how that interacts with listener expectations as well as the decisions made by performers.  

But does it? In some later baroque and other "common practice" pieces it somewhat gives the illusion of doing so, but most good composers broke the rules, and it offers nothing. And in non-serial later pieces what does it offer by way of explanation? Serialism is at least a prescriptive theory, and so does go some why to explaining why a piece is as it is but I would argue it does so by becoming merely a rule for laying out notes, with nothing to say about music at all.

[anamnesis]

I know what a meta-language is, but music theory seems to me a particularly poor example. Lot's of nouns, not much else.

See the Laitz video I posted earlier in the thread and here:
https://mathemusicality.wordpress.com/2007/07/25/how-not-to-teach-music/

Even beginning harmony texts are starting to get out of the mold (however slowly) of treating music as a series of objects that need to be named.

But does it? In some later baroque and other "common practice" pieces it somewhat gives the illusion of doing so, but most good composers broke the rules, and it offers nothing. And in non-serial later pieces what does it offer by way of explanation? Serialism is at least a prescriptive theory, and so does go some why to explaining why a piece is as it is but I would argue it does so by becoming merely a rule for laying out notes, with nothing to say about music at all.

You clearly know that theory doesn't stop at Walter Piston's Harmony text, so your first point doesn't really hold. First year texts deal with the common practice period, but that isn't the only way to understand music.   

I think we need to separate out two things. There is a difference between composition and how a listener processes music.  Theory is really and should be more involved with trying to figure out the latter (which is what you are hinting when you say serialism lays out rules but doesn't really say anything about music),

This can can inform the choices of the former, but that doesn't actually restrict or determine it. Again, the composer can do what they please.

After a work is composed, no matter how it was done, we can still attempt to describe how listeners can understand it.  (And I'm not saying that listeners will understand it the say way.  A good theory will be able to describe the points of ambiguity and what in the music causes that.)


No matter what composers do, they can't change the fact that music is produced in time, which will have an effect on we cognitively process music. 

They also can't change the fact that we do perceive pitch class hierarchies and relationships. 
Some of the relationships may change in different music traditions (although some are pretty universal: unison and octave, the fifth to a less extent), but that doesn't change the fact that everyone perceives some sort of pitch class hierarchy. 

It's much simpler to describe in modern 12 TET, because of the restrictions, and the fact that at in least in the Western musical tradition, everyone is acculturated to it.  It's actually pretty easy to account for social effects and how music has evolved over time, when you get over the bias that everything should be "natural" rather than some sort of human artifice. Humans tend to understand and model more complex events or ideas as elaborations or extensions of simpler events or ideas, so our ability to understand the increasingly complexity of music over time is part and parcel of the entire enterprise. 

[pianoplunker]

me, dcstudio, playing Misty for you pianoplunker  

now do tell....

That was nice! I like your chops.  The author of that -Erroll Garner did not know how to read music. At least that is what the internet told me 

[dcstudio]

That was nice! I like your chops.  The author of that -Erroll Garner did not know how to read music. At least that is what the internet told me 

thanks 

I did not know that...  and I have played Misty 4 many.   

guess what I am saying is to really be able to play--first you have to understand what it is you are playing.

some people just get it... Erroll was one of them.   I was not so lucky..lol.

[outin]

Help me learn to love it!

I don't know if I can help you love theory, but I will tell you how I got into it.

When I started playing as an adult and with decades passed since my instrument studies, I thought I would not waste time with theory, I just wanted to learn to play. But the music I like tends to be a bit complicated and I don't have much ability to memorize things by drilling. So after a while it became necessary to start adding some tools to help me memorize my music and I felt theory might help. So I took out some books and read them. I have studied theory both in school and in connection to my instrument studies as a kid, but never really learned anything properly. I read it and understand the big picture, but never could remember the details afterwards. I also have a lot of trouble memorizing the names and order of things. So reading the books didn't get me anywhere. There's a lot of material in the internet, but most of it is useless for me, because it uses different concepts than what we use here. That also limits the possibilities to discuss things in the forums. I need to get one language figured out before I can fluently change between them.

At my work there was another adult piano student. She has never studied theory before, but sometimes at coffee breaks we started to fool around with some concepts and making our own "rules". Then another person started there who also wanted to start piano lessons and we got this grazy idea to stay after work every Wednesday to study theory together as a study group. We started January 2014 and we are still at it. Not every week, but when it suits us all.

It's really quite grazy sometimes and very informal. Since I am the only one with some experience it fell on me to collect the material and make exercises. We tried to use an exercise book, but it wasn't very good, the exercises were either too easy or too hard and often didn't include the things we had trouble with. Also it seems everyone of us has some sort of learning issues with different weaknesses. So I try to figure out exercises that concentrate on the things we find difficult and help us repeat and repeat the things we cannot easily remember. We also advance in a rather erratic way, because we have to go back to basics regularly for the things we have forgotten. We don't do homework, so obviously many things must be repeated for several weeks. But since we are not in any kind of hurry, it doesn't matter if we are still at the basics.

What I noticed is that I learn things much better now that I need to figure out exercises and explain things to the other two than I ever did just trying to study them by myself. We all have trouble staying in the box with our thinking, so it sometimes gets a bit wild with us creating our own theories and rules about things, but it's also fun and it helps memorizing a lot. To help to connect the theory with the practice we use an old electrical keyboard someone brought at work. I also print a lot of real music for us to "analyze", that helps to answer their frequent questions of WHY something is important. We often end up discussing why composers wrote what they did.

Since I don't always have time to prepare anything we spend a lot of time repeating stuff learned earlier (we've drawn a lot of circles of fifth) and this is of course good for deeper learning. I'm actually quite surprised that we are still at it, because it never was very well thought of, just a silly idea. But it is also fun. Obviously as adults we simply need more to motivate us than just "you need to learn this now". And it's always great when someone finally gets something that's always been bugging them.

For example now I have days off from work but need to restrict my playing due to an elbow injury. So I have spent some time to create new study material about chords. There's nothing better to help one learn quads than trying to figure out ways to make them understandable to someone with no previous study of them and who generally has trouble figuring out such systems. Also now I think I can better answer their frequent question about why we need to learn the intervals and their qualities, something which we've spend quite a lot of time with in the past...

So can you think of anyone whom you could study theory with? In your own way and pace instead of trying to force it?

[bernadette60614]

Thank you....very helpful!

Strangely enough, I think I can study theory in an interesting way with our son, who is 13, and can compose in ways which are mysterious to me. He just seems to have an instinctive feel for intervals which eludes me unless I study them consciously.

I have never been good at memorizing.  I just seem to be better at grasping the whole and then working from there.  So perhaps another approach would be to take the pieces I"m learning in chunks, and see how theory applies and then string the chunks together.  Not a very technical approach...but it might work for me given how I learn.

[dcstudio]

grasping the whole is the only way, really...otherwise it's just an enormous amount of single notes.

I remember the chord progressions--that way when I get distracted and forget what I am doing I can at least get the harmony and tonality right ...makes the lack of melody a lot less noticeable. 

that's why I love theory--it saves my... when I am performing.